Мидлвич: История соляного производства в Англии.

Middlewich, a town in northwest England, lies on the confluence of three rivers – the Dane, the Croco and the Wheelock. Most importantly for the history of salt making, it also lies on the site of a prehistoric brine spring. Following the Roman invasion, Middlewich was named Salinae on account of the salt deposits around it, as it was one of their major sites of salt production. During this time the Romans built a fort at
Harbutts Field (SJ70216696), to the north of the town. Recent excavations to the south of the fort have found evidence of further Roman activity

including a well and part of a preserved Roman road. By 1908 there were nine industrial scale salt manufacturers in the town, with a number of open pan salt works close to the canal, however salt manufacture in Middlewich is now concentrated in one manufacturer, British Salt. The salt is sold as the Saxa brand by RHM, and by others e. g. supermarket own brands. Salt produced by British Salt in Middlewich has 57% of the UK market for salt used in cooking.

"From thence runneth Wever down by Nantwich, not far from Middlewich, and so to Northwich. These are very famous Salt Witches, five or six miles distant, where brine or salt water is drawn out of pits, which they pour not upon wood while it burneth as the ancient Gauls and Germans were wont to do, but boil it over a fire to make salt thereof. Neither doubt I that these were known unto the Romans, and that from hence was usually paid the Custom of Salt, called Salarium. "For, there went a notable highway from Middlewich to Northwich, raised with gravel to such a height, that a man may easily acknowledge that it was the work of the Romans, seeing that all this country over, gravel is so scare: and from then at this day it is carried to private men’s uses. Mather Paris writeth that Henry III stopped up these salt pits when in hostile manner he wasted this shire; because the Welshmen, so tumultuous in those days should not have any victuals or provisions from thence. But when the fair beams of peace began once more to shine out, they were opened again. "Then runneth the Dane under Kinderton, the old seat of the ancient race of the Venebles; who, ever since the first coming of the Normans have been commonly called the Barons of Kinderton. Beneath this southwards, the little river croco, runnerth also into the Dan Croke, the river aforesaid being past Brereton, within a little while visiteth Middlewich, very near unto his confluence with Dan, where there be two wells of salt water, parted one from the other by a small brook: Sheathes they call them. The one stands not open, but at certain set times, because folk willingly steal the water thereof, as being of greater virtue and efficacy. From thence runneth Dan to Bostoke, in time past Botestock, the ancient sear of the family of the Bostokes, Knights. Out of this ancient house of the Bostoks, as out of a stock, sprung a goodly number of the same name, in Cheshire, Shropshire, Berkshire and elsewhere."

The Croxton Works were located on the Trent and Mersey canal, approximately halfway between the Big Lock and the Croxton Lane Bridge at SJ699669. The works were established by the Dairy and Domestic Salt Company, probably in 1892. It was taken over by Henry Seddon before 1905 and worked until closed by subsidence in the 1920s. Until the early 1990s a derelict canal side warehouse still existed on the site, however this has now been demolished. All that remains now is a canal side flash (proposed as the site of a Middlewich Marina in the 1970s) and the foundations for the warehouse. Both the flash and warehouse foundations are now overgrown and hardly visible.

In around 1913 the Pepper Street salt works were rebuilt by Henry Seddon. Following a merger between Seddon and Sons and Cerebos in the late 1950s, the open pans at Pepper Street and those at the Cerebos site on Booth Lane were worked together as a single department, before being closed in 1968–1970. The Pepper Street works were demolished in the mid 1970s (at around the same time as the gas works on the opposite side of the canal), and the site is now a housing estate.